


The Case of the Regenesis Scintillator

by sachspanner



Series: 7-Day Challenge #2 [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sachspanner/pseuds/sachspanner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for LJ's dailyfics comm, under the prompt 'Adventure'. There are two Doctors, one of whom is a Time Lord and the other is very confused. Set post Sherlock S2 and Doctor Who's 'The Snowmen'. A little diffcult to pin a synopsis to beyond that, so you'll just have to read it. Probably well summed up by this: genderswap if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Regenesis Scintillator

Traces of Sherlock Holmes still littered the flat, even if the man himself was long gone, dead and buried along with his reputation. It made John feel better, somehow. Not much better, but he knew better than to ask for too much.  
He imagined that the doorbell rang. It never rang. Most people seemed to accept that Sherlock had been the fraud Moriarty painted him as. To almost the entire world, John was just a conspiracy theorist, who clung to the idea Sherlock was a genius, despite all the evidence he was nothing more than a criminal. Sherlock was so much more.

The doorbell definitely rang. John walked down the stairs cautiously, trying to work out who could be on the other side of that door. He didn’t know anybody any more. He turned the latch, prepared for a charity mugger or mop salesman.

It was neither.

“Clara!” beamed the man on John’s doorstep, kissing him firmly on the mouth. “Can I come in?”

John looked at the lunatic who had just kissed him. He was tall, skinny, beaming and wearing a bow tie. Sherlock probably would have had him sussed, but John couldn’t make sense of it.

“My name’s John,” he said, as if this would make the other man realise he had the wrong house.

“Of course,” the stranger replied. “You’re a man, you can’t be Clara. Is your surname Oswald?”

“It’s Watson.”

“And your middle name? Oswin?”

“Hamish. I’m not the person you’re looking for.”

The man frowned, pulling a boxy device with a revolving light out and waving furiously. It crackled like a Geiger counter in proximity to John’s face.

“And yet this says you are. Are you sure you’re not Clara?”

“Positive,” John eyed the device with caution. “My sister’s ex is called Clara.”

“Bingo!” the madman declared, stuffing the strange device back in his jacket pocket. “Lead me to her.”

He forced his way past John and into the flat. John considered going out, but the thought of leaving this eccentric, no matter how seemingly harmless, in his home still scared him. He put his head in his hands and took a deep breath.

There were noises coming from upstairs.

“I’ve made you a cup of tea,” the newcomer shouted. “I had my screwdriver up too high, so I may have burnt it, but I’ve brought you Jammy Dodgers to make up for it.”

John walked into the kitchen and accepted the proffered cup.

“Thanks. No, sorry- who are you?”

“I’m the Doctor, but it’s far more interesting who you are.”

“You turned up on my doorstep, kissed me on the mouth and called me Clara. Really, it’s far more interesting who you are.”

The Doctor popped a jam ring into his mouth and downed his tea with a wince.

“Okay. I’m an alien from outer space, the last of my kind. I keep bumping into a woman called Oswin Oswald, and I adapted my regenesis scintillator to look for reincarnated human life and somehow it’s taken me to you.”

“Sorry- a what?”

The Doctor pulled the device from his pocket once more.

“Regenesis scintillator. It catches the threads of reincarnation energy, latches on to them and looks for them in another point in time. I picked up the scent when I left Clara in 1892 and followed the trail to you. But you’re not Clara.”

“I know,” John offered redundantly.

“So who are you?” the Doctor asked, probing John with the machine.

“Obviously I’m the person who can take you to Clara,” John sighed, sipping at his tea.

“Don’t be stupid,” the Doctor snapped, starting to pace; John felt a pang of reminiscence. “I could just go to Clara myself. So why has this sent me here, to you?”

“How do you know it was Clara’s scent you picked up on?” John asked grimly, the old thrill he enjoyed during cases beginning to tantalise him once more. “There could have been another one of me back in eighteen-whenever, and you’ve made a mistake.”

The Doctor spun to look at him.

“I don’t make mistakes. Well, not too often. Anyway, I didn’t know a John back in 1892. Are you sure you’re not Clara? Do you like making soufflés?”

“No, I’m not Clara, and no, I only vaguely know what a soufflé is.”

The Doctor sank into a chair glumly.

“You’re not Clara.”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to say.”

“Well, it’s obvious,” spat the Doctor. “You don’t look anything like her. Her hair was much nicer.”

“Thanks,” John sighed, sipping at his awful tea before thinking better of it. “What did you say your name was again?”

“The Doctor. Just the Doctor,” he replied, head lolling on his chest. He perked up. “Hang on a minute. What did you say your name was?”

“John. John Watson. Why?”

“Ha haa!” the Doctor replied. “Jenny! You’re Jenny!”

John rubbed his temples.

“Doctor Watson! Originally just a story, but look at you now! The reincarnation energy took the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle and turned my Jenny, 1892 Jenny, into a living, breathing Doctor John Watson!”

He looked triumphant, awaiting John’s praise. John thought for a second.

“Well, if you’re right- that’s amazing,” he conceded.

“It is, Jenny, it is!”

The Doctor pulled him up out of his chair. Downstairs, the door opened.

“John, I’m back!” Mrs Hudson called.

“Strax!” the Doctor beamed, throwing himself out of the room and down the stairs. Moments later, he dragged a very confused-looking Mrs Hudson into the room.

“John, who is this?” she asked.

“The Doctor,” John replied. It seemed the most practical response. “An old friend.”

“Oh, from medical school?” Mrs Hudson smiled. “How lovely. Has John made you comfortable?”

“Well, the tea was rubbish, actually,” the Doctor shot a look at John, who blinked in confusion.

“Never mind- I’ll make you a fresh pot,” she looked at John with disappointment. “Really, John.”

The Doctor rubbed his hands together as Mrs Hudson wandered downstairs again.

“So you’re Jenny, that was Strax so where,” he whirled around the flat, “is the great Madame Vastra?”

He flung cushions aside, as if the mysterious Madame Vastra might have somehow concealed herself behind them.

“Who’s Madame Vastra?” John asked.

The second the words left his mouth, he knew.

“She’s your wife, of course, the Great Detective,” the Doctor turned to scrutinise John, whose face had fallen, hard. “Ah. I am so sorry. For your… loss.”

John sank back into the chair by the window, hand resting on the violin case. Sherlock’s violin case. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Doctor flailing. He did not care- it could not matter less. For a minute or two they sat in silence.

“I- I can take you away from this. You won’t forget, but it gets easier. Trust me.”

John said nothing.

“I knew you and Vastra, in your old forms, for long enough. I know what you meant to each other.”

“Sherlock and I weren’t like that,” John interjected.

“Weren’t you?” the Doctor asked. “When did he die?”

A clock ticked. One, two, three, four.

“Nearly two years. Two years in June.”

The Doctor said nothing.

“What do you mean you can take me away from this?” John asked eventually.

“Clara told me to do two things: run and remember. And that’s taken me straight to you, and you probably need to follow the same advice. Come with me. Go wherever you want, whenever you want. Have adventures with me. Because if there’s one thing I know about you Jenny, it’s that you make a great companion.”

“Tea?” Mrs Hudson popped her head around the doorframe.

John’s eyes were locked on the Doctor’s.

“Actually, Mrs Hudson, we’re just going out.”

It wasn’t a long walk to Hyde Park, but it was all the time John needed to come back to life. Once he had the Army, then he had Sherlock, now he had the Doctor. He smiled.

“You seem excited. You haven’t even seen my transport yet.”

“Sherlock travelled everywhere by black cab- interesting, but unreliable and expensive. Whatever you’ve got, it’s got to be better than that.”

“Oh, it is,” said the Doctor, strolling up to a blue police box.

John sighed. He really was just a lunatic. Said lunatic flashed him a grin before pulling open a door and dragging him inside.

‘Bigger on the inside,” John swallowed. “Very impressive. Do you mind if I?”

He pointed to the door behind him.

“Go on,” smiled the Doctor.

John darted in and out, until he was seemingly satisfied.

“It’s incredible,” he gaped. “Really incredible.”

“Thank you. So,” he leant his hand on a lever. “Where to?”

“Where can we go?” John asked.

“Anywhere, anywhen, so long as we haven’t been there before. Not only is that hideously boring, it’s incredibly bad news for the space-time continuum.”

John chuckled.

“How about…”

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

The Doctor surveyed a monitor with unease, before pushing a button. The door bolted.

“Doctor, who was that?”

“Bad news,” he said carefully.

John strode over to the monitor, but the Doctor turned it from him.

“I don’t think you should see it.”

“Doctor!”

“Fine,” The Doctor sulked, turning the monitor to John.

John looked at it for a moment.

“Do you have a chair?” he asked.

“Why?”

“Because I need to sit down!”

The Doctor wheeled him out a chair. The person outside knocked again.

“Either we run,” the Doctor said, “Or we open that door.”

They both looked towards the door as the knocking grew more frenzied.

“John, open this door.”

Sherlock’s muffled, grumpy tones permeated the wood. John’s heart sank. It was definitely him. On the day he gave up hope, the ghost of Sherlock Holmes came back. He unlocked the door.

“Sherlock?” he asked.

“John, I need you to help me clear my name,” Sherlock strode in to the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. “It’s been long enough.”

“You’re telling me,” John said weakly.

“We need to go, time is of the essence. I’ve only just come out of hiding and Mycroft’s cameras will have seen me. We need to go, John. Now!”

The Doctor looked on with interest. John shook his head.

“Look at me, Sherlock. Look around you. See.”

“It’s bigger on the inside, John, I can see that. He’s an alien come to whisk you across the universe because you can’t stand sitting still. Which you seem to have been doing a lot of, judging by your waistline.”

John shook off the slur. He was hurt enough.

“No, Sherlock, properly look at me. Look at yourself. This is wrong!”

Sherlock glanced about the console room, and then over John’s clothes, his hair, his eyes.

“You’re a lot older than you were the last time I saw you,” he said eventually.

“Which means?”

“It’s been two years,” Sherlock sighed. “A difficult two years. I’m… sorry.”

John nodded. Sherlock held out a hand for him to shake, and he took it.

“I won’t take you both,” the Doctor piped up. “It’s a one-man deal.”

“Doctor,” John started apologetically.

“I know,’ the Doctor grumbled. ‘Goodbye, Doctor Watson.”

“Goodbye, Doctor,” John turned to go, but thought better of it. He scrawled on the back of a receipt before handing it to the Time Lord.

So, the Doctor hardly noticed as John and Sherlock stepped out of the TARDIS onto Hyde Park in springtime. He was too busy reading the piece of paper John had handed him.

_Clara Oswald. Likes soufflés. Goes to night school in Paddington every Tuesday. I have a gun. If you hurt her, I kill you._


End file.
